


Eden Origin

by kokorodaki



Series: Eden Theory [1]
Category: Sword Art Online
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-03-15 04:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 6,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokorodaki/pseuds/kokorodaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first in my side-fic series to a fan-fiction project I'm doing with a bunch of friends for SAO. It's basically a self-insert, but into a modern-day IRL recreation of the game Sword Art Online, from the anime of the same name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wake

The crescendo begins.  
My phone’s going off. It’s my alarm.  
It’s three in the morning.  
But that’s what I want.  
I turn my alarm off as fast as I can, so I don’t wake up any of my family, hopefully.  
I’m ready to go, after only five minutes. That’s a new record for me. Not that I’m keeping track.  
I cannot describe how excited I am.  
I’m going to try anyway.  
There’s this anime, one of my all-time favourites, called Sword Art Online. It’s about ten thousand people who get stuck inside a virtual reality MMO, called Sword Art Online. There’s no respawns. If you die, that’s it.  
Oh, and if you die…  
… you’re dead IRL too.  
Yeah, that’s kind of harsh.  
Scratch that. That’s evil.  
Anyway, to escape the game, they have to finish it.  
The game is set in a world called Aincrad, made up of one hundred floors. You start at floor one, finish at one hundred. Pretty simple.  
Not so much.  
To go up to the next floor, you have to find the main dungeon and defeat the boss.  
Yeah, that sounds pretty easy.  
Again, not so much.  
Sure, it’s a piece of cake when you can respawn, but there are no respawns in SAO. That’s what the game was built around.  
Anyway, I don’t to say much more, just in case you haven’t seen the anime, because you really should watch it.  
Now where was I going with this?  
Oh, I got it.  
I’m sorry, I’m just way too excited.  
Someone made the game.  
And it starts today.  
Now, I know what you’re saying. “Why the hell would you want to play something like that? Why would you want to play a game where you’re gambling your life?”  
There’s a couple of reasons.  
First of all, I really doubt someone would actually recreate SAO with the death game aspect to it. What do you gain out of it? I mean, sure, Kayaba Akihiko did it in the anime, but I don’t think we ever found out why.  
Look at it this way.  
When a developer company creates a game, they want to make as much money out of it as possible. If they’ve only got ten thousand people playing, then they’re not going to get much money out of it. They’re going to want as many people playing as possible, and the numbers need to climb. After all, the money they pay to run the servers has to come from somewhere.  
Second of all, if the death game element was actually built into it, wouldn’t someone have realised by now, and reported it to the police? Wouldn’t the project be shut down?  
Well, that’s how I see it.  
I just hope I’m right.


	2. New Birth

I’ve never really been into MMO gaming. It’s really just not my thing. I don’t much like spending hours grinding, and I tend to play solo, which ends up getting pretty boring. I just don’t have the social skills to talk to people in game.  
SAO was different.  
I don’t know how I knew, I just had that feeling.  
When I found out that SAO was being created in the real world, I went into full on fanboy mode, which is something that almost never happens to me.  
I just knew that I had to play it, even if it ended up being a death game.  
I wanted to know the feeling of a real blade in my hand, the thrill of blade to blade combat, I wanted it all.  
Even if it cost me my life.  
As soon as I got the opportunity, as soon as I had the money, got myself a VR headset and a pre-ordered a copy of SAO. I went a week with only two meals a day, one less that I was used to.  
Dad wasn’t too happy about that, but I didn’t care.  
Maybe I should’ve.  
I can’t believe how close it is, just fifteen minutes away.  
I struggle to contain my excitement as I slip on my VR headset and lay on my bed, as I flip the switch, as I say the words that have wanted to be released for months:  
“Link Start”  
I know my real body is lying still, immobile, but I feel so alive and free right now, as I rush through my character creation, building my avatar in record time.  
Male.  
Nineteen years old.  
Five foot, five inches.  
Long, dark brown hair.  
Fifty one kilograms.  
Brown eyes.  
Pale skin.  
Class, rogue.  
On and on for what seems like a few seconds.  
And, finally, I get to name my character.  
Who am I?  
Well, you don’t need to know my name now.  
After all, you won’t be hearing it any time soon.  
There’s only one name you’ll know me by.  
From now on, you can call me Kokoro-Daki.


	3. It Begins

“Hey Ko!” A loud voice from across the square in Town Of Beginnings, that of a young boy, not much younger than me, short of breath. I lifted my head when I heard my new name, and saw my friend Ghost. I don’t know why he called himself that, he’s not very stealthy. Not even close. I just hope, that for his sake, that’ll change.  
He ran towards me, obviously impatient to get out in the wilderness and hunt. We’ve just joined the server, so we’re still level one, and we need XP badly.  
Ghost is an old friend of mine, I’ve known him for years. I won’t tell you his name though. I’m not telling you any names. It’s for the best, and I don’t see much point when my story is about the lives of these people in-game, not IRL.  
He came to a stop in front of me, his pale hair falling into his blue eyes, and he we shook hands. “Finally, someone familiar in this server,” I mumbled.  
“Pfft, I give you a month, and you’re already running a guild. I bet you 300 Col on that.”  
“Me, running a guild?” I really didn’t think that’d ever happen. I’m a follower, not a leader. “Yeah right.”  
“Whatever. Let’s go. I wanna kill something.” So we left.  
Out in the fields, we killed our first boars. They were so easy. I don’t see why Klein was having so much trouble in the original anime.  
“I want a challenge, something that could kill me,” Ghost suggested. “We should head to the forest and kill some of them plants. Do that quest for the Anneal Blade or whatever it was called.”  
“You wanna do something that could kill us?” I asked. “What if this actually is a death game? We should wait until after the tutorial before we get ourselves killed, make sure we’ll respawn.”  
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He agreed. Man am I relieved for that. “You know, we should make sure we can log.” He began opening the menu, swiping down with his left hand, middle and pointer fingers extended. I did the same thing.  
I flicked to the settings, and scrolled to when the logout button should be.  
Crap.  
Crapcrapcrapcrap.  
It’s not there.  
Ghost looked at me, fear in his eyes. I nodded, “We’re screwed.”  
I fell to my knees in the grass alongside Ghost. My worst nightmare had come true. SAO, the game I thought would be paradise, had been corrupted.  
We can’t log out, and no respawning.  
And that’s not the worst of it.  
If we die in-game, we die IRL.  
As I lay in the grass, a notification appeared in my HUD. A call for teleport, and no option to refuse. Destination: Town Square, Town Of Beginnings, Floor 1.  
So this is it. This is where it becomes official.  
This is where everyone else finds out about the truth.  
Blinding light fills my vision, and the teleport commences.


	4. True Colours

You know, I’ve always dreaded this… I don’t know what to call it. I guess ‘event’ would be the best word.  
I’d always hoped I’d never have to go through the next five minutes, but I knew in my heart that it’d happen. I can’t believe how ignorant I was.  
I shouldn’t be thinking about this. There’s no point dwelling on the past. I need to focus on getting out of Aincrad, which will probably mean clearing SAO. All hundred floors.  
There’s no time to think anymore, the teleport’s finished.  
We’re in the main square of Town Of Beginnings. It’s called a square, but it’s actually a circle. Yeah, I know, weird right? Whatever. By ‘we’, I mean all ten thousand players. Well, it’s probably ten thousand. I would be surprised if it was more.  
I wonder how many know what happens next.  
The sky above us turns red. Well, it’s not really the sky, just the underneath of Floor 2, made to look like the sky.  
A viscous blood-like fluid begins to fall from the sky, and eventually forms a giant hooded figure, his (or her) face hidden.  
Wow, the devs were really trying to maintain their accuracy.  
In the anime, this was actually Kayaba, the creator of the game. Oops, spoilers. Too late now.  
Hmm, do you think they’re going by the name ‘Heathcliff’? That was Kayaba’s player name.  
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. ‘Heathcliff’ is talking. Until I know the name they’re using, I’ll just call them that.  
“I’m sure you all know by now that there’s no logout button.” Ugh, it’s the same voice. So much nostalgia right now. “This is not a bug. This was the way the SAO was meant to be.” The crowd went wild. Not a good wild either. They were screaming at him. “Also, there is no respawning. Your lives in this world are linked to your lives in the real world. If you die in SAO, your headset will emit enough microwaves to destroy your brain. You will die. If your headset is removed, you will also die. The only way to leave this world is to clear the game. You must reach Floor 100 and defeat the final boss.”  
At that, I could hear the crowd both shrieking at him and crying.  
“I’m sure there’s some of you out there who saw the original anime called Sword Art Online, or read the novels or manga of the same name. This is not a joke. This is a serious situation, and I expect you to all act like it. Two hundred and forty-six people have already lost their lives today.”  
The crowd went silent.  
“One last thing. You should find a gift in your inventory. Some of you already know what it is.”  
I did. It’s the mirror.  
I opened my inventory anyway, and activated it.  
I was right. I mirror fell into my hands.  
Glancing at it, I didn’t look much different. I’d made my avatar look as much like the real me as I could. It’s something I’ve always liked doing.  
Everyone else though, they changed a lot.  
I need to find Ghost, but I hadn’t found him after the teleport.  
I heard his voice though, calling my name. I ran towards it.  
Ghost had changed a lot.  
His hair, how black, wasn’t in his eyes anymore. Much shorter actually. And his eyes were brown. And his face was fatter too. Well, more chubby than fat.  
I wasn’t surprised. He’d always seemed like the kind of guy that didn’t like his face.  
“Ghost, I’m here.”  
“Wow, you don’t look much different,” he replied.  
“Yeah, we can talk about that later. Right now, we need to get out of here, and find the others. And you were right, I’m going to start a guild, maybe even an alliance, but we can talk about that later too.”  
So we left.  
We didn’t bother staying around Town Of Beginnings. Bad idea. The monster spawns will disappear too quickly, and we’ll just get left behind, experience wise.  
No, we’ll follow in Kirito’s foosteps.  
We’re heading to Horunka Village, the second village on the first floor, and we’re doing the quest there to get the Anneal Blade, Secret Medicine Of The Forest.  
I’m sure the rest of our friends will be doing the same thing.  
I quickly created a group chat and added them all anyway, told them the plan. They were all in, and said they’d meet us there.


	5. Familiar Faces

A few hours later, the two of us got to Horunka. We’d met Fustion Dawn along the way. He’s a friend of mine IRL, but he was part of SkAO too.  
Oh, wait, I haven’t told you about SkAO yet.  
Skype Art Online, or SkAO as we call it, is an online group of friends with a common interest in the Sword Art Online anime, books, or manga. I don’t think many of us read the manga though. Anyways, it was probably started about 18 months ago now, but I’ve been part of it for a little over a year.  
As soon as we heard about the IRL recreation of the SAO VRMMORPG, we knew that pretty much all of us would be playing it. We talked about starting a big guild with all of us in it, but decided against it. We’d just have our own guilds, and we’d form an alliance of sorts, maybe even make an actual alliance if there was a system like that in the final game.  
So right now, we’re waiting in Horunka for the rest of them to get here, and we’ll do Secret Medicine Of The Forest together. There’s about thirty-five of us in total, plus a few friends.  
On the way here, I was chatting to a few of the members too, talking about the guild I wanted to make. So far, there’s me, Ghost, Fustion Dawn, and Xora Ku’reden. I hopefully wanna get more than that though. You can’t really make a clearing guild out of four players.  
Anyways, back to the matter at hand.  
I can already see someone coming over the hill just outside of the village. I think its Prowling Thunder.  
Wait, you know what? I should message the group, saying we’re here.  
Kokoro-Daki: Oh, we’re at the village btw guys. Me, Ghost, and Fustion.  
Prowling Thunder: Phew, it’s you guys. I thought it might’ve been a PK ambush.  
Fustion Dawn: Well, you know, maybe we are waiting in ambush. Maybe we’ve hidden our true selves all along.  
Veiryn: Dude, this isn’t really the time or the place for jokes like that.  
Fustion Dawn: Oops, sorry. Still getting used to the whole death game thing  
Prowling joined us, a worried look in her eyes. I met her gaze, “Yeah, I had the feeling it’d turn out like this too. I’d hoped that it wouldn’t, but I was wrong.”  
“Yeah, I could tell,” She replied. “Anyways, I kinda don’t think we should do the quest with the whole group. Way too many people, we’d just get in each other’s way. We should do it in our small groups instead.”  
I nodded, agreeing.  
Just as we were talking, another four people came over the hill, a woman, a young girl, a man, and a boy. Ignoring their differing skin tones, you’d think they were a family.  
The woman, Lydia Wraithskin, walked under the heavy weight of her armour, shield, and one-handed axe. Her dark skin, and matching braided hair, made her ice-blue eyes stand out even at this distance. And oh my God, I’d never thought she’d be so tall. She stood at about six foot.  
The girl, who’d be about fifteen, looked like she could be Lydia’s daughter. Xora Ku’reden stood half a foot shorter, with short doubled braided hair and green eyes. She carried a mace and a small shield.  
The man, Majority, was even taller than Lydia, by about four inches. His skin was much lighter, and his eyes were grey. He too wore heavy armour, but no shield. Instead, he carried a massive two-handed broadsword.  
The last one, the boy, was Dylan Titanchild. He looked like he could be my little brother, with his black hair almost as long as mine, and standing a little taller than me. Ok, more than a little taller. Oh, and he doesn’t talk much either. Yep, definitely my little brother.  
Just so you know, that was sarcasm. My little brother looks nothing like me in my opinion. You should meet him soon actually.  
Dylan also carried a mace, along with a kite shield, and wore heavy armour.  
Majority saw us and yelled out. “Yo guys. About time we found some more friends.”  
Ok, I knew his voice was deep, but I’d never realise it was that deep.  
Prowling shot back, “Hey, you’re the ones that are slow, not us.”  
They joined us, and Majority went straight to Prowling to use her as an armrest. Yeah, she’s pretty short, just on five foot. Majority had to lean down a little.  
“PT, you gotta get on the meat, grow a little, you’re so short,” joked Majority.  
Prowling just gave him a cold glare and moved away.  
I broke the silence to discuss the new plan. “Guys, we’re not going to do the quest as a large group anymore. There’s just too many of us. We’re doing it in small groups instead. Still up for it? There’s just enough of us here to do it actually.” Except for Prowling, they all agreed.  
“Sorry Koko,” She explained, “I’m gonna wait for a few of the others. You guys go on ahead.”  
“That’s cool. We should be fine anyways.”  
We created the party. There was seven of us: me, Ghost, Fustion Dawn, Lydia Wraithskin, Xora Ku’reden, Majority, and Dylan Titanchild. As I looked at their builds, I had one thought, great, a party full of tanks.


	6. Roses Are Red

“Ghost, Nepent 7 o’clock,” I warned, at the top of my lungs. He rolled forwards, dodging it’s attack effectively, and used a quick sword-skill to finish it off.  
Fustion was in much the same position, flitting between enemies as he struck them down.  
Majority and Lydia fought back to back – well, as close as you can be while swinging their blades around them. They worked in perfect unison, covering each other, as if they were one body. As a Little Nepent cam at Majority from the side, catching him unawares, Lydia blocked its attack with her massive shield and struck it down with her axe.  
Dylan was a machine, ruthless, a force of destruction in his own right. Even surrounded, he was still all but invincible. I don’t know how he manages to keep his hair behind him with the way he moves.  
Xora was like Dylan’s shadow, moving in much the same way, even if she seemed afraid for her life.  
We’ve been at it for an hour, and we still haven’t gotten one of the flower Nepents, the quest target. The quest requires us to kill one of them, and bring back the quest item it drops, and each party member will get the quest reward, which should be the Anneal Blade, a One-Handed Straight Sword of higher quality than those you can buy in the Town Of Beginnings market.  
The flower Nepent really is that rare that, even after an hour, we’ve gotten none. To get one, we’ve gotta keep killing the normal Nepents to reduce the ‘pop count’, or the number of spawned mobs. You can only have so many spawned at once in a loaded area, and it’s pretty much always at max.  
So to get a flower Nepent we’ve gotta reduce the pop count to make room for more spawns, and hope we can get one to spawn.  
It ended up taking us three hours to get one, and by the end I was dead tired and hungry. I chewed three six of the basic One-Handed Straight Swords because of the Nepents’ corrosion effect, where hitting them with a metal weapon damaged the durability more than normal. It’d been a little expensive, but worth it in the end for getting the Anneal Blade.  
We went back to the village and finished the quest, receiving our swords too. We walked outside, but Ghost stopped us close to a park bench to say something.  
“We should celebrate,” Ghost suggested. “This is our first quest completion, we need to celebrate.”  
“Seriously dude?” Dylan responded.  
“Yeah, we could go do some PKing or something, you know -” He never got to finish.  
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” I raged. I couldn’t believe he’d suggest it. He’s always loved PKing in other games, and I was worried about it here too, but I never thought he’d chase it. “Ghost, this is not a game anymore. PKing is murder, in this game and IRL. If you kill someone, they’re really going to die.”  
“Pfft, yeah, right. For all we know, that guy was just exaggerating. People probably just get logged out, and can’t log back in. He was lying Ko.”  
“We don’t know that. What if you’re wrong and they really do die? What if you really do kill someone, could you live with that? Could you forgive yourself if you murdered someone?”  
By that point, Ghost was redfaced with anger, and I’m sure I would’ve been too. The other five just stood and watched, too shocked to argue. Ghost stormed off, shouting back “It’s a lie Kokoro. It’s all a lie.”  
I sat on the bench, exhausted, confused, and looking for a solution, but seeing none. Lydia and Dylan sat on the bench too, while the others stood around.  
“What do I do guys? I can’t let him do this.” I looked at Lydia as if she could give me an answer. A slammed my fist against the seat. “Dammit, what do I do?”  
Before I knew it, my hands wrapped my face, wet.  
Then Xora spoke up, her voice as smooth as silk, “You wait.”  
“It’s all we can do,” Fustion agreed.


	7. The First Ending

The Kobold Lord, the boss of the first floor, was dead.  
Despite the deaths of a few players, I was relieved. We could do this.  
I spoke quickly to Prowling, who’d lead the boss fight. “I’ll take my party to Floor 2 and activate the portal.” She nodded.  
I began walking up the stars, and my party joined my. There was eight of us now: me, Lydia, Majority, Dylan, Xora, Ghost, and now, Lessandria, another friend of mine from SkAO.  
She was only fourteen, but she was still an awesome friend.  
As we entered the next floor, I waited for her. “How’re you feeling?”  
She nodded, and the dark mess she called her hair bounced a little. “Good, just tired.”  
“Yeah, you get used to that.”  
The eight of us got to the city, Zweite. The Floor was made up of plains, with some rocky outcrops in the western quadrant. We fought a pack of Rabid Dogs and a Bear along the way, but they were quickly killed.  
In the centre of the main square at Zweite, there was an archway a little taller than Majority, the Teleport Gate. I tapped it, and a small window popped up: ‘Do you want to activate the Teleport gate?’ There was two buttons underneath, blue and red, corresponding to yes and no. I tapped the blue button.  
People started coming through, each appearing in a flash of white light.  
The Teleport Gate allows players to move from floor to floor. There’s one in each of the floor’s cities, in the main plaza. There’s no cost or prerequisite to teleport, so they’re quite popular to use.  
Well, that’s how it worked in the original SAO, but it should be the same here.  
We waited a few minutes to watch the people stream through the portal, then went to find a hotel. It was 10pm, time to put the kids to bed.  
We found a cheap on not far from the plaza, and got a bunk room looking over it.  
Xora made a suggestion: “Hey, instead of going to bed this early, we should go explore the fields, fight some stuff, to celebrate. It’d be fun.”  
“Seriously Xora?” I asked. She was. “We know almost nothing about this floor, or the mobs. It’s too dangerous at night time.”  
Majority stood up. “Man, lighten up a little. We’re a high enough level that we should be good. I know you’re worried about the kids, but we’ll be fine. There’s eight of us man, and we know what we’re doing.” We motioned to Lydia and continued, “Besides, if anything goes wrong, us three’ll be there to fix it.”  
I gave in, “Fine, but only for a couple of hours. We’re all pretty tired already.”  
Because there was so many of us, we formed two parties. The player limit of a party is seven, so one of us would be left out otherwise.  
I was with Ghost, Lydia, and Xora. Majority, Fustion, Dylan, and Lessandria made up the other party. We’d still be together though, fighting as if we were one party.  
I was honestly surprised how easy these mobs were to fight. I guess I’d gotten overprotective after the boss fight, where we were fighting more enemies than normal, plus a boss.  
The animals were easy to fight. There was Bears, Dire Wolves, and packs of Rabid Dogs. The humanoid mobs were a little harder. They were just a little less predictable I guess. There was single or pairs of Bandits, Goblins, a few Kobolds, and a Hobgoblin every now and then.  
We worked well as a team, and fought hard enough that our HP bars never went red. I don’t know why I was so worried.  
The others started to relax as we settled into our party dynamics. Xora and Ghost started playing recklessly. Too recklessly for my liking, but before I warned them, Xora was hit hard.  
She was already at two thirds of her health. A Bear struck her across her back. That was a blow Lydia should’ve taken, considering she was a tank, but she was too slow.  
Xora fell to the ground, a series of red gashes across her back. There’s no blood SAO, so it just left bright red cross-hatched streaks. Her HP was draining fast. And we couldn’t stop it. She’d used a healing potion, but it only slowed the draining HP, until it disappeared altogether.  
She whispered, “I’m sorry,” and her body shattered like stained glass.  
She was dead.  
Dylan screamed, and with all his fury, swung his mace at the bear, which was preparing another swing, but it shattered, just like my friend.  
Ghost collapsed, crying.  
Lydia knelt where Xora had lay, silent.  
Fustion spoke the same word over and over, “No”  
Lessandria, still standing, could only cry.  
Majority stood guard, but I knew he was crying.  
I’d fallen to my knees, crying. I knew we shouldn’t have gone out.  
It was my fault. Because of me, Xora was dead. I’d given in, and we went hunting, and I couldn’t protect her. Now, she’s dead.  
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Lydia beside me. “It’s not your fault,” she began. “I know you’re blaming yourself for letting us go out like this, but it’s not your fault.”  
“You know that’s not true. If I hadn’t given in, Xora would be alive. It’s my fault Lydia.” I stood and turn to walk away.  
Majority grabbed my shoulder, hard enough that it started to hurt. “No. It’s not your fault. We’ve all got our reasons to blame ourselves. Lydia could’ve blocked the Bear’s attack, and maybe Xora would be alive.” Lydia bowed her head at that. She really was blaming herself. “Fustion, Dylan, and Lessandria could’ve worked harder to kill it. I could’ve agreed with you when you said we shouldn’t go.” By that point, there were tears rolling down his cheeks. “We’re all blaming ourselves man. It’s not your fault.”  
I slumped to the ground. He was right. This wasn’t my fault. Sure, I could’ve argued a little more, but that doesn’t make it my fault. All I could do was protect her. All we could do was fight beside her.  
And that wasn’t enough.  
I looked at the group, with one question in mind. “So what do we do now?”  
Lessandria answered: “We continue to fight. It’s all we can do.”  
“We fight for the life she never had,” Fustion continued.  
And Lydia finished: “And we fight her share too, as if she was part of us.”  
I nodded. They were right. That was all we could do.  
I don’t know why, but at that moment, I glanced at Ghost, and all I could see in his face was guilt, before he turned and ran away from us.


	8. Search

Finally, the quest we’ve been dying to start – thankfully, not literally. The six of us stood before the NPC who initiates the quest. It still feels strange that Xora’s not with us, cracking naïve jokes, even after a couple of weeks. Some of us are affected more than others. He may not show it, but I know Ghost’s all torn up inside. He stayed home today. I don’t think he could handle it.  
She was meant to be here for this. She was meant to be part of our guild.  
The quest giver, Calluse I think, was crying out for help. “Oh adventurers! Help me!”  
I responded, “Can we help you? What’s wrong?”  
“My dear friend, Martyn has gone missing!”  
Lessandria spoke up, “Your friend? Can we help? Where is he?”  
“Last I heard from them, they up in the north-western region mapping that area of the floor,” he answered thankfully. “If you could please go up there and find out if he is safe, you would have my gratitude.”  
A HUD window opened before me, asking if I accept the quest. Of course, I accepted, tapping the respective button. We all received an update in our quest menus, giving us a new quest: Search And Rescue. The only instruction at the moment was ‘Go North’.  
So we headed North. There wasn’t really any other choice.  
Floor 3 is a frozen swamp. Most of the floor is just small, muddy islands and cold, murky water, much of it frozen. The villages and the cities are built on more solid ground, like hills and rocky areas, but it’s still pretty cold.  
We started heading North. We didn’t know how far we’d have to go, so we just kept our eyes out for anything that might be significant.  
As usual when travelling, we fought a lot of monsters, obviously themed around ice. There were Ice Toads, Frostigators, Iceacondas, Eskimo Ants, and many more with entirely ‘original’ names. Most of them were easy work for the six of us. We were working really well as a team. Pretty soon, that was going to matter a lot more.  
We’d been travelling for what seemed a couple of hours, and night time was beginning to settle in, and we found a small hill that looked ideal for a rest area, and we were pretty tired. I figured now would be a good time to rest, and I got many sighs of relief in response when I suggested it to the others.  
When I reached the top of the hill, a text window popped up on my HUD, telling me I’d entered a safe zone. Even better. We didn’t have to set up a watch, since we wouldn’t be attacked by mobs, and nobody could PK us. I closed the window, and some tents and a campfire even appeared before us. Awesome.  
Within a minute or so, we were setting up. Cam- I mean Fustion was setting up the campfire, Lydia and Majority were gathering firewood – hopefully dry – and Dylan was cooking. None of us had really levelled enough to take on any menial skills yet, so we’d have to deal with the basic crappy stuff a player can cook. Blech.  
It wasn’t long before we’d all eaten and were heading off to bed. One by one we entered the tents. Not me though. I don’t have time to sleep. I need to become stronger if I want to protect them.  
So I left, in the dead of night.  
By the time dawn came, and the others were getting up, I was back. They knew nothing of my midnight venture.


	9. Rescue

We’d spent the first hours of the morning, at least after a terrible breakfast, continuing our journey. We were well in the wilderness by now, trekking knee-deep through cold sludge.   
“Hey, what’s that?” Dylan had seen something apparently. I followed his gaze, and I saw it too.  
We’d found a solid island-hill, with what looked to be a small shack at the top. I tapped through my menus. “Guys, it’s not on the map. I think this is it.”  
We made our way onto the island. Before I could give any relief about solid ground, we heard a cry from the top of the hill. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?” It sounded like it was coming from the shack.  
We rushed up, as fast as we could with our waterlogged bodies. Majority’s voice boomed, “We’re here.”  
“Yes, I’m trapped in the building. I can’t leave or the monster will kill me.”  
“Monsters? But there’s nothing here?” Fustion said, obviously confused.  
Lydia had climbed to the very top of the hill, looking over. “Uh, guys. There are definitely monsters here…”  
We joined her, and discovered a horde of monsters climbing the side of the hill. The pop-count for this area must be concentrated here. “There’s like forty of them!” Dylan exclaimed. “How the hell are we supposed to kill all of them?”  
A new window opened on my HUD: Clear area.  
I sighed. “Well, might as well get started. Wouldn’t want our friend here to… die…” I dropped my gaze.  
“Let’s do this.” Dylan seemed pretty excited, as usual. “Time to kick some monster-butt.” And he rushed in, the rest of us following close behind.  
As usual, battle became a slow-motion blur. I didn’t think, just let my body move on it’s on, working in perfect tandem with my party members.  
I massive Ice Toad leapt up the hillside, powerful enough to shake the ground upon landing. Dylan was quickly on its case, smashing its face with his mace (wow, that rhymed well).  
The toad opened its maw to attack, and its tongue snapped out towards Dylan at lightning speed, which he blocked with his kite shield.  
The tongue stuck, and began to reel him in. The toad was going to eat him.  
With a mighty battle cry that sounded like a marching drum, Majority leapt into and slashed at the creature’s tongue, cutting most of it off. While the thing was confuse, it was easily dispatched.  
And all this time, even while I was watching, my blade dropped mob after mob. Seriously. Not to brag, but I mean that. I was a machine.  
We must’ve been halfway through the horde already, only after a couple of minutes.  
It was maybe five minutes later. The enemies were almost finished, just a few strays.  
I heard a thud, then darkness.


	10. Nightmares

I’d been dreaming again.  
Well, maybe dream’s not the best term here.  
I’d seen my friends die, one by one.  
And just as my turn was coming, I woke, covered in sweat and tears.  
My eyes flicked open. It was dark, but I could see the light of a fire nearby. I realised the others were standing around me, concerned. I must’ve been screaming.  
I counted them off, one by one. They were all alive.  
Lessandria, whose face I saw first, looked just as relieved as I thought I did. The others were relieved, but also concerned.  
It was Majority who spoke first. “What the hell have you been doing man? You been sneaking off on us? Grinding through the night?”  
I looked away. I couldn’t let them know.  
“Dude, you know you don’t need to do that.” That was Dylan of course. “It’s not your job to protect us. It’s nobody’s job. That’s what makes us a team.”  
“You need to trust us Koko,” Lydia continued.  
And I was crying again. “I’m sorry guys. I started after... Whenever I could, I’d sneak out through the night.”  
Fustion left then. Lessandria and Dylan followed him. I guess they figured Majority and Lydia could handle the rest.  
“How long have I been out?” I asked.  
“Only a few hours,” Majority answered. Well, it could’ve been worse, I thought.  
“We’re leaving in the morning,” Lydia said, answering the question she knew was coming.  
They definitely made the right choices.  
Lydia got up to leave, but Majority motioned for her to stay. “How long have you been having these nightmares?”  
“You already know the answer to that one,” I replied.  
We left in the morning, after another terrible meal of course. It turns out that NPCs don’t eat. The more you know…  
We made it back to Frell safely, even though Martyn just had to bring his cart full of research. Ugh, I hate NPCs sometimes.  
As soon as we came anywhere close to Calluse, the quest-giver, him and Martyn began to speak. “Oh, Martyn, there you are.” Wow, he doesn’t seem too concerned about his friend, I thought.  
“Yes, I’m safe thanks to these adventures,” Martyn responded, unawares to Calluse’s apparent lack of concern.  
“Ahh adventures, I knew I was right to trust you with this quest. You have my thanks,” he said, finally acknowledging our presence. “Although it may not be much, if you wish to create a group. I can register you back at our establishment within the Town Of Beginnings.”  
“You also have my thanks.” Martyn said to us. “Although it may not be much, you can have these maps of the north-west region, I’m sure it will be of great help to you.”  
A new window opened on my HUD, asking me to confirm the completion of the quest. Of course, I clicked the ‘confirm’ button. Two new entries appeared on my update feed, saying ‘Received map data’ and ‘Guilds now available’.  
Finally, we could officially cement our group in this game.  
While Majority took the kids back to the inn we were staying at, Lydia and I travelled back to the Town Of Beginnings to create the guild.  
Our guild name: Eden Theory.  
Our motto: Reclaiming Perfection.  
Man it’s good to see the guild icon on my HUD.


End file.
